Finally, a test to ask for (unless you live in Europe)! This revolutionary new test determines the existence of acute and chronic Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme) by evaluating the specific immune response in patients. The NEI (Neuro-Endo-Immune) Connection published the following information by Sirid Kellermann, Ph.D. in November 2010.

Not another Supplement!  Please!  Have you seen the boxes of supplements I already have for the 142 symptoms I suffer with daily?  And paying for these “critical” supplements is impossible because I am far too sick to work.  The doctors are all on payment plans that I am barely managing to cover and now there is another “MUST HAVE” supplement.

Thankfully Propax NT is a high-quality combination vitamin/mineral supplement designed to be completely absorbed into the body replacing many of the individual vitamins you may currently buy.

In fact it started out (and continues to be) a “super-food” or meal replacement given the unique combination of nutrients.  It includes many of the supplements you are already taking along with special ingredients that have been shown to increase energy by 40%!

Another aspect of Propax NT is that it actually repairs cellular damage and helps reverse the process of aging.

Whether you want more energy to keep up with everyday life, or simply the great feeling that comes from better health, you won’t get there without serious, proven nutritional support. Propax with NT Factor® is a unique formula clinically validated to reduce and eliminate fatigue, providing optimal support for every organ system of the body. How? By helping to keep and recover functions essential to energy production.

Extensive research has shown Propax nutrition supplements to improve quality of life for both healthy individuals and those people undergoing serious health challenges. Encouraging clinical trials have also shown Propax to be successful in reducing some of the unpleasant effects of some medical therapies.

Propax nutrition supplements contain a powerful group of nutrients, called NT Factor®, specifically designed and clinically validated to enhance cellular energy. NT Factor is made up of food components and a nutrient that most closely matches the primary nutrient found in the cell membranes throughout our bodies (lipids). This unique formula provides a complete daily supply of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fatty acids, and probiotics.

In order to understand the role of Propax with NT Factor® has on your system, you should first understand the importance of health at the basic cellular level. Each of your cells converts food into energy by means of a process that is insulated by your cell membranes.

The major components of the cell membrane are lipids, which are naturally occurring molecules that act as energy storage. The proper function of this energy conversion process is fundamental to preventing loss of energy and chronic disease. Healthy cell membranes may degrade because lipids have become damaged (often due to poor diet, disease or drug medication). When your cell membranes degrade then so does energy production.

Propax with NT Factor®® acts to reverse this damage by replacing damaged lipids with healthy lipids, resulting in a restored function of cells, and ultimately reversing loss of energy. This delivery of healthy lipids is known as Lipid Replacement Therapy (LRT).
I get my Propax NT at Amazon (free shipping) and have been able to discontinue five seperate supplements that amounted to well over the cost of Propax.

I have found that Propax NT gives me energy I can count on – except perhaps on my worst days – but I finally feel like these pills that I am constantly taking are helping!

Recovering from Lyme disease requires an effective killing protocol, but it also requires proper meal and snack choices, as well as extra nutrients to help our bodies get rid of neurotoxins and boost the immune system.  Propax NT fortifies our cells with the right balance of nutrients enabling us to have more energy, more stamina, and more life to counteract the crippling pain and disabling symptoms of Lyme and/or other tick-borne diseases.

 Read more about Propax NT here or at http://www.propax.com/propax-with-nt-factor/.

Neurotoxin effectively means “nerve poison”. Neurotoxins act directly on neurons, or nerve cells, by interfering with membrane proteins and ion channels in the central nervous system.  Common external substances that cause neurotoxins in the body are: venom from poisonous insects or reptiles, carbon monoxide, mercury and other heavy metals, ethanol and various other chemical substances. Chemical weapons make use of neurotoxins to impair or kill their enemies.

The destruction of spirochetes also creates neurotoxins which flood the body causing all Lyme symptoms to flare up.  This event is known as a “Herxheimer reaction” or more commonly a “herx”.  The problem is easy to see…if you want to destroy Lyme disease and reclaim your life, it means you have to find the courage to actually feel worse before you can feel better.  And not all people handle neurotoxins the same way.  Some bodies eliminate neurotoxins more easily than others, but regardless of the relative “ease” with which we rid ourselves of these poisons; pain on top of pain equals more pain.  Killing Lyme is very different than getting rid of mucous after a bad cold.

The following is taken from: Cleansing Neurotoxin Overload by Victoria Bowmann, PhD

“In Lyme disease, the bacteria is a “smart” bug which wants to maintain its life within the person. It actually hides itself from the immune system. The Lyme bacteria is neurotoxic and, in order to survive, clogs up the lymphatic system and causes the blood to thicken. This leads to poor blood flow through the liver and a stickiness to the interstitial fluid.

The interstitial fluid is the fluid that bathes and nourishes the tissue cells. It also picks up microorganisms, foreign particles, enzymes, proteins, and hormones for processing through the lymphatic system. In addition to the lymphatic system, Lyme prefers to travel through the collagen more than the blood.

Lyme disease is a systemic infection and it can invade and damage any and all organs, glands, and systems of our body. Lyme patients are also challenged by other co-infections that are often overlooked.

I am sorry to say that I missed it.  But thanks to Kettmann.com,  we are all able to watch it, and download it to share with friends and family.

Please watch it now or later  (the video is 40 minutes long.)  Just follow these simple steps – courtesy of Channel 5, Boston Massachusetts, ABC-TV WCVB.

For Windows click here to watch streaming download.

For Apple click here to watch streaming download.

Click on SAVE FILE, and then OPEN after the file has been completely downloaded.

The file is large and will take some time to download.  When it is finished, double-click on the GOM icon and the movie will open in a new window.

There is a button on the top right with 4 little boxes which will open the movie in full screen.

Enjoy!

People who are sick with Lyme disease and treating the disease for years with antibiotics and/or alternative treatments – sometimes with a single protocol and sometimes using several protocols at once – are beginning to wonder, “…maybe I don’t have Lyme, maybe it is something else.”

The  problem continues to rest with inadequate testing for a clear diagnosis. Researchers in Italy and subsequently in the UK have recently (October and November 2011) published findings that demonstrate Bartonella heslslae transferring DNA to human endothelial cells. Endothelial cells are the thin layer of cells that line the interior of blood vessels.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to consider the impact of this information with respect to the neurological aspect of our disease(s).

According to Dr. James Schaller (who actively researches and collaborates with doctors from around the world), Bartonella is far more common than Lyme and is spread not only by ticks but by just about every other biting insect you can think of.  He writes in his soon-to-be-published textbook on human infections spread by flea and ticks:

Bartonella is no footnote and is more common than Lyme.  Many years ago when I first got involved in the super specialtyof tick and flea infection medicine, no one took Bartonella seriously.  It was presented as an easy to kill infection, and of no real concern.  It was rarely discussed at infection medicine meetings, in guidelines or infection textbooks.  (I noticed the same thing after publishing four books on Babesia–the parasite books I purchased only had two pages on this serious infection).

When I published the most recent book on Bartonella, it showed that Bartonella did not have two or three skin patterns, but vast numbers.  This was a fully new and massively expanded diagnostic tool based on reading the world literature and examining heavily infected patients.  I was also surprised that no one was looking for the chemicals altered by the presence of Bartonella and the dynamic of these chemicals when both Babesia and Bartonella are present.  You can read this in the latter sections of my textbook, Babesia 2009 Update.

This year a new human Bartonella species was added to the over thirty five Bartonella species publically published in Genetic Data banks.  It was discovered and highlighted by the talented veterinarian researcher Edward Breitschwerdt.  He has said things more clearly than the ideas I was pondering in 2005, while doing most of my Bartonella book reading. 

Dr. Breitscwerdt has said simply, but with devastating and highly useful clarity that Bartonella testing is terrible, the treatments are poor, it is typically found on the outside of red blood cells, and the current research on Bartonella is pathetic (referencing one study at NIH.)

 If this was not enough, he said in 2011 “Bartonella is carried by more vectors than any infection on the earth.”  So it is hardly a backdoor “co-infection.”  Indeed, this month Bartonella was literally shown to alter human DNA.  The implications of this possibility are staggering, and may support what I reported six years ago—Bartonella is not killed simply or easily.  My appeal is simple: treating it like a footnote infection is outdated and harmful.

The symptoms of Bartonella are very similar to Lyme but may include other more specific symptoms such as swollen lymph glands, sore throat, painful soles of feet especially in the morning and hyperacusis (sharp pain from sound).  See more on Bartonella.

Watch ILADS Lyme disease conference lectures as leading professionals examine the cutting edge research and state-of-the-art clinical applications in the treatment and diagnosis of Lyme disease.

We will be restreaming select presentations on December 17, 2011 that were not seen due to technical difficulties on October 27th & 28th, 2011 free of charge.

http://www.ilads.org/emails/livestream_online12172011.html

See the December 17, 2011 video streaming schedule below:

1:00pm-1:30pm (EST) or (10:00am-10:30am PST) Understanding
Symptoms Related to Visual Dysfunction following a
Tick-Borne Event — William V. Padula, OD

1:30pm-2:15pm (EST) or (10:30am-11:15am PST) Borrelia
Infections- diagnosis and treatment — Joseph J. Burrascano,
Jr. MD

2:15pm-3:00pm (EST) or (11:15am-12:00pm PST) Lyme Disease &
Babesiosis: Updates on Diagnosis and Treatment 2011 —
Richard I. Horowitz, MD

3:00pm-3:45pm (EST) or (12:00pm-12:45pm PST) Pregnancy and
Tick-borne Diseases: Gestational Lyme — Charles Ray Jones, MD

3:45pm-4:30pm (EST) or (12:45pm-1:30pm PST) Overview of
Integrative Patient Care in Tick-Borne Diseases — Steven
Bock, MD

4:30pm-5:15pm (EST) 0r (1:30pm-2:15pm PST) Identifying
Environmental Illness and Mold Exposure in Patients with
Persistent Lyme Disease. — Lisa L. Nagy, MD

5:15pm-6:00pm (EST) or (2:15pm-3:00pm PST) Management of
Ixodes scapularis bites. — Elizabeth Maloney, MD

6:00pm-7:15pm (EST) or (3:00pm-4:15pm PST) Coinfections And
The Opportunistic Groupies — Christine Green, MD

For complete information about the ILADS Live Streaming
Conference Presentations, December 17, 2011:
http://www.ilads.org/emails/livestream_online12172011.html

The following two studies (see summary here) demonstrate that Bb spirochetes can persist in the mouse after ceftriaxone therapy.  This supports the claims of chronic Lyme sufferers who maintain that they still have the disease after antibiotic treatment – even IV antibiotics.

The Finish study was remarkable in that the culture and PCR were negative after ceftriaxone, but after additional treatment with anti-TNF-alpha, viable spirochetes were recovered.

TNF is a pro-inflammatory cytokine (cytokines signal molecules in our immune system) which, when blocked, typically results in a reduction in clinical inflammation; for this reason, such treatment is used for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

To the surprise of the authors of the study, viable spirochetes were recovered in these PCR- and culture-negative mice after TNF blocking treatment was given.

Also interesting is that anti-TNF treatment did not result in the expected finding of a reduction of joint swelling.

The Finnish study was the first study to demonstrate that immuno-modulatory treatment of animals infected with Bb could convert them from culture negative to culture positive.

The California study was remarkable in that only tick-feeding was capable of extracting infectious but non-replicating attenuated spirochetes; without having done that step of xenodiagnosis of (xenodiagnosis refers to the process of exposing a sterile tick to the tissue suspected of infection and then examining the tick afterwards…in this case finding the evidence of spirochetes which otherwise would not have been found) and then transferring the tick to feed on naïve SCID mice, the authors’ conclusion would have been that infectious spirochetes do not persist in the mouse model as culture was negative.   The authors further concluded that negative culture and PCR can not be relied upon as markers of treatment success.

We do not know the extent to which these findings can be translated to the human situation.

Nevertheless, the activation of infectious spirochetes after anti-TNF therapy in mice should alert clinicians to the possibility that anti-cytokine therapy may result in a similarly increased risk of activating latent infection among patients with a history of treated Lyme disease.

At this point, we do not know whether attenuated spirochetes are capable of inducing illness-symptoms in mice or humans; while it is possible that spirochetal mRNA may be producing surface lipoproteins that stimulate systemic symptoms, this hypothesis needs to be tested in the next phase of this important research.

SOURCE: Columbia University Lyme Research and letter from Dr. Brian Fallon the Director of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Research center at Columbia University.

In a vast section of the Maine Wilderness there were one hundred and forty-two (142) moose found dead according to a recent article in the Bangor Daily News (December 2, 2011). These apparently healthy moose are found dead covered with ticks which points to the astronomical increase in tick population, and fuels the raging epidemic of Lyme disease and other potentially fatal tick born diseases. (Article link at end of post)

The moose were unmarked and dead for no apparent reason other than the fact that they were completely covered in ticks.  Their natural predators will not eat the moose in this condition,but the ticks will.  The ticks fill their bellies and hop off to breed more – up to three thousand youngsters each.

Do the math.

It isn’t just the moose in trouble.

This alarming news travels fast in a state that depends greatly on tourists and hunters who bring revenue into the state when they venture north to view the beautiful Maine wilderness and hunt in the vast forests.  And with Lyme and other tick borne diseases spreading like wildfire, people are hesitating to risk the exposure.

Is an enjoyable week-end worth the very real possibility of ending up as a tragic statistic – out of work and painful suffering for who knows how many years?  In New England the epidemic is common knowledge, even in Maine there are very few people who don’t know someone stricken with the disease.

I won’t be surprised to see legislation asking for pesticide drops to push back the dangerous infestation (as hinted in the article.)

When it was just humans suffering with tick born diseases we were told that we were crazy.  Now that the moose are endangered something must be done.

To read the article click here.

Medical researchers and Lyme-literate doctors have known for some time that co-infections complicate the recovery from Lyme borreliosis and in some cases prevent it but the reason for such difficult complications was unclear.

After the discovery of the role of biofilms in Lyme disease by Dr. MacDonald, subsequent research has uncovered evidence of communication within the biofilm between different pathogens that may illuminate the key factors of the problem and hopefully lead to reliable solutions. See 2008 slide show re Borrelia in Biofilm.

Biofilm Overview

The National Institutes of Health estimates that 60% of all human infections and 80% of refractory infections (def. unresponsive to medical treatment) are attributable to biofilm colonies.

• The protection conferred upon microorganisms by biofilm allows them to achieve a high level of antibiotic resistance, stealth and invisibility.

• Biofilm not only provide a physical barrier to antimicrobial agents (pharmaceutical antibiotics) and host antibodies, but facilitate the exchange of antibiotic-resistant genetic material between organisms and may contain antibiotic-degrading enzymes.

• In fact, biofilm communities can be 1000 times more resistant to antibiotics than free-floating bacteria.

• The decreased growth rate of sessile microorganisms (def. Permanently attached to a substrate; not free to move about; “an attached oyster”) also reduces their antibiotic susceptibility as most antimicrobial agents require rapid cell growth in order to effectively kill or inhibit the microbes.  Biofilm thus render pathogenic microorganisms enormously difficult to eradicate, and can almost single-handedly contribute to localized or systemic inflammatory reactions and delayed wound healing.

• Depending on the type of biofilm, one or more species of pathogens may be found embedded in the extracellular polymeric substance (EPS).  Bacterial EPS maybe a carrier of, or may have heavy metals embedded in them which may require chelation.

Pathogenic bacterial known to reside in biofilms include, but are not limited to: Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme bacteria), Escherichia coli, Candida albicans (yeast and fungal mutation), Clostridium difficile, Clostridium perfringens, Helicobacter pylori, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Vibrio cholerae.

The number of human diseases shown to be associated with biofilms is ever expanding and includes: chronic bacterial prostatitis, chronic rhinosinusitis (chronic sinus infections), cystic fibrosis pneumonia, infective endocarditis, periodontitis, recurrent otitis media, and virtually all device and implant related infections.  Strong evidence is also beginning to emerge for an etiologic (causative) role of pathogenic mucosal biofilm in gastrointestinal diseases, such as Irritable Bowel Disorders (IBS): Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Biofilms can be composed of multiple species of pathogens.

Lyme biofilms are composed of the covering of the biofilm which forms a matrix rich in sugars, called extracellular polymeric substance (EPS).  In addition to polymers, it is composed of extracellular DNA, proteins that are expressed by the pathogens, polysaccharides, metals, and minerals such as calcium, magnesium and iron. 

Lyme bacteria exhibit a double cell membrane envelope structure (with an outer and inner membrane ). However, the structure of the spirochete envelope is significantly different from the typical double membranes of gram-negative bacteria . At this time (2011) the outer membrane of Borrelia is determined to be fluid-like, and it is composed of 45-62% proteins (high in lipoproteins), 23-50% lipids (high in glycolipids), and 3-4% carbohydrates.

Lipoproteins (made of proteins and lipids) in Borrelia play a major role in the inflammatory response within the infection sites in the body. One of the functions of the lipoprotein is that it acts as an adhesion in order that the organism can stick to surfaces. Unfortunately the organism itself appears to have a pump system, whereby substances that are internally toxic to it may be removed – these substances include detergents, bile salts, antibiotics , dyes, and heavy metals.

Biofilm pathogens talk to each other

According to the massive textbook “Borrelia: Molecular Biology, Host Interaction and Pathogenesis” recently published by Caister Academic Press, biofilms act like an intelligent community of pathogens, and embedded pathogens appear to have a signaling communication system. Bacteria can produce chemical signals (“talk”) and other bacteria can respond to them (“listen”) in a process commonly known as cell-cell communication or cell-cell signaling. This communication can result in coordinated behavior of microbial populations.The pathogens aggregate together, then signal one another to secrete the sticky, protective covering and express proteins.  As biofilms stick to the tissue, inflammation and tissue damage occur.

Biofilm communication was first discovered in the 1970s, when scientists at Harvard University and Scripps Institute of Oceanography began to report on a unique and fascinating phenomenon.  The system they were investigating was the production of bioluminescence by the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri (then called Photobacterium).  As a result of extensive studies, scientists Nealson, Platt and Hastings published their findings which indicated that the bacteria was “estimating” their population density, which of course implied that they were in communication with one another.  In 1970 the idea was absurd to mainstream science but today it is commonly accepted phenomena known as “quorum sensing”.

Montana State University (blog picture courtesy of Montana State University) has a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center that focuses exclusively on biofilms.  They have found that each of the quorum sensing mechanisms they have examined is highly individualized to the specific bacterium possessing it.

Bonnie Bassler at Princeton University explains that this “census-taking” enables the group to express specific genes only at particular population densities. Quorum sensing is widespread; it occurs in numerous Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. In general, processes controlled by quorum sensing are ones that are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium but become effective when undertaken by the group.

She has also discovered that in addition to their “private languages”, many bacteria have developed generalized chemical messages that can be interpreted by members of other species. In lectures she postulates that in the future, we can hope to develop microbes that can “turn-on” good behavior and “turn-off” bad behavior.

For scientists in the biofilm community this information is like a lightning bolt that has sparked numerous implications in medicine.  For those of us with chronic Lyme, some believe that this may explain why and how co-infections stall or prevent recovery from our unique “Lyme soup.”

SOURCES: University of Montana, Borrelia: Molecular Biology, “Host Interaction and Pathogenesis” by Caister Academic Press, Princeton Department of Molecular Biology, Klaire Labs

The German  “Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Lyme borreliosis” is a far cry from the US standard written by IDSA (Infectious Disease Society of America).  In fact it reads more like Dr. Burrascano’s Guide and therefore deserves a careful read.

Not only does the guide define chronic Lyme disease but it clearly validates it.  Also noteworthy is the statement, “A negative serological finding does not rule out Lyme borreliosis.”